Major Update to High Velocity Bowling

Hello everyone! Team RamRod here, the developers of High Velocity Bowling. Today we break our long silence with an equally long blog post.

To give you some background on the HVB development team, we are a small team who works on several projects. As some of you know, Big Ern has left our neck of the woods (we still miss him). But, the team has since picked up the reins and is now leading a new charge for HVB.

A lot of you have been asking about HVB, and we are here to deliver great news. We are pleased to announce that we putting the finishing touches on a new update for HVB, which will hit the PlayStation Network TOMORROW! Excited? Well, the best part of this is that the new update – all new features included – is FREE! For our brothers and sisters in the north, that means FREE for you, too.

We can hear you now … “Wait, what? Really? I get online play in the update? Will it support my Playstation Friends List?” YES to all of the above. You will now be able to play with your friends online AND be able to chat with them using a PS3 headset or microphone. Feel free to chat and talk smack after comparing your stats and rankings on the online leaderboards that will be updated weekly.

PSN TROPHIES!

Yup! PSN Trophies – 12 new shiny and purty trophies (7 bronze, 4 silver and 1 gold trophy). The only way to earn these is to play online (fortunately, we added that too, ‘cause we’re awesome!). If you’re worried you don’t have the skills, don’t stress — if you’re persistent enough, you will still be able to earn most, if not all, of these as well. Here’s the list:

BRONZE:

Score 180 or higher in an online game.

Achieve an online rating of 1600 or more.

Knock down a total of 500 pins in online games.

Get 10 strikes in online games.

Get 15 spares in online games.

Win an online game.

Play 3 online games.

SILVER:

Score 250 or higher in an online game.

Knock down a total of 5000 pins in online games.

Get 25 wins in online games.

Get 75 strikes in online games.

GOLD:

Get 150 strikes in online games.

PLAYLISTS WITH IMPROVED AUDIO!

You can access the XMB while in-game for your own custom soundtracks, with support for playlists. We had custom music before, but were not able to incorporate playlists. Now with the new XMB custom music feature, you can bowl while listening to a mix of Beethoven, Frank Zappa, Britney Spears, Weird Al Yankovic, Gregorian Chants and Nirvana! And with the improved audio options, you’ll be able to crank up your tunes, character voices, and ambient sounds, OR turn them off altogether!

MORE TRICK SHOTS!

That’s right, we’ve included a section on the menu to start posting additional trick shot challenges. You’ll be given two new challenges with your update, and additional trick shots will be created for download in the future. These challenges will not only help you earn patches that you missed out on during your normal gameplay, but get you more stars for the leaderboards!

NEW BALL BAGS!

We’ve added a new and more realistic Ball Bag system in HVB. You can only bring four balls with you onto the lane in each bag, so you’ll have to choose wisely. You can name and save up to 24 different ball bags so you don’t have to individually choose four balls every time that you want to play. Be sure to mix and match so that there are some good hooking balls and some good straight rollers in your bag. This way, you’ll be prepared for any oil pattern or pin leave!

ALLEY SELECTION!

You can now choose which lane to play on (as long as you’re not in a tournament). This means that you can play in Spider’s Garage, Tiffany’s Toybox, the Zen Garden, or wherever you want!

NEW ADD-ON CONTENT

We are going to continue to provide new content for HVB. This content will include more sinister Trick Shots, more wacky characters, cool bowling balls and quirkier costumes.

Anxious to get your game on and strike it up? These exciting new features for HVB will truly make your bowling experience fun. We made the extra efforts to make sure we delivered a lot of fun into a whole lot of FREE for our devoted fans! Please make sure you continue to check back here for future updates on HVB. You’ve all waited so patiently for more – we’ll be sure to make it worth your wait!

Sweet. Online play was always what this game was missing. One thing I’d love to see is some sort of implementation of avatars. It’s fine to have the wacky characters, especially during solo play, but it’s distracting for multiplayer. I’d say it’s the only thing that Wii bowling has over HVB now that you’ve got online play.

Very nice additions! It’s great that you’re giving us these updates free, you could have easily charged a few bucks for some of them. I look forward to returning to the game with some friends and racking up spares and trophies!

I also want to add how impressed I am at the commitment developers have had with psn games. Even when I am satisfied with a game,you guys continually add updates and improvements that keep me coming back for more. Great job

Fantastic update… I find it amusing that small devs are truly focusing on giving consumers the best gaming experiences while other devs are pretty much ignoring their users completely, i’m looking at you Singstar devs.

Nice! I hadn’t played my copy in a while because I had beaten all but that last bowler (The asian guy, forgot his name), online matches should definitely get me to play more often! Also those trophies are just about right, though the silver one of scoring at least 250 is going to be a challenge. I don’t think I’ve ever scored above 220 yet…

Good stuff! But… I think I’ll choose not to update. I really suck at this game (seriously, can’t even clear the very first set of challenges) even though I find it fun. So I don’t wish to see HVB on my trophy list forever at 0%. :(

@1, it was an unexpected update. And really? Do you really want to take in-game pictures of HVB? HVB and bowling in general is fun to play, but not incredible to watch. I’m very happy with all the stuff added.

I\’m happy that you like HVB and you are as excited as we are that the Online update is finally here. =)

As to your questions. Head to head online play is just that, 1 on 1. It\’s really easy to use your PSN Friends list to find out which Online Lobbies, or \”Bowling Alleys\” your friends are playing in. Once you join them in the same alley, you can challenge them from there.

As for the EYE camera support, though it has been discussed, we ultimately had to trim our workload down and focus our efforts on finishing our Online mode.

Right on, make sure PSN gives you some advertising on the feature page!! I think this is a killer update. Also, I would like to add as well that people like yourself, Travis, Dylan (warhawk), Dylan (pixeljunk) and the rest of the teams contributing to the Playstation Network have really made strides in making online DLC and multiplayer utterly fantastic. Thanks to all of you for consuming so many hours of my life with your masterpieces. :)

Wow, awesome; glad to see released games getting so much ongoing support; you guys, the Pain folks and Burnout Paradise. It reallt adds to the value of purchases, and the effort is definitely appreciated!

Online only for the trophies? I can’t get a high speed connection where I live so I have to bring my PS3 into work if I want PSN titles or DLC. It’s a chore but I do it because I love what the PSN has to offer. I understand that some games are going to have trophies that revolve around online play but having a few that don’t would be nice. I realize I’m in the minority here, playing downloadable games with no connection at home.

With that said I really do like HVB and I’m glad you are still showing it some love.